In the world of scholarly writing we are strongly encouraged to rely on sources published in academic journals. These sources are thought to be superior to information published in books. When writing, we cite these articles from peer-reviewed publications since they represent the latest thoughts and evidence on the subject matter. Given these reasons, it does make sense to pursue sources from peer-reviewed publications.
Recently, I came across some exceptions to this rule. I have been conducting literature research in knowledge management and case studies. In both of these examples, the field relies heavily on the use of books. That is not to say published works only cite books but rather, there is an unusual amount of references to books in the publications on knowledge management and case studies. Allow me to hypothesize on the reasons for these two exceptions.
First of all, knowledge management is a relatively new field. As a result, there are limited theories supporting this field and some of the early contributors to the field published as authors in books. While some of the theories building up to the more complete and accepted literature were published as journal articles, the books themselves became the predominate source in the field.
Lang, Hall, and Landrum (2010) observed that 30% of citations in published works were made to books and a majority of the citations were made to a subset of 25 sources. This clearly shows a shallow pool of literature supporting research in the knowledge management field and the use of books is prevalent in this field. As a result, research in knowledge management leads to a higher percentage of books cited compared with other fields.
Secondly, in the field of case study research there also exists a higher reliance on books. Rather, a book.
Yin's (2009) work on the case studies research methodology has been widely referenced in the field of case studies. While there are many sources on case study methods, Yin's work appears to be the primary source and is commonly reference by other publications. Many of the research articles on case study methods refer to Yin. While Yin's work does appear to be central to this field, it is also interesting to note the author's work leading up to this book was published on behalf of the author's organization and the work was distributed as a product rather than published as an individual scholar. As a result, little work was published prior to the release of the first edition of this text. Therefore, Yin's published text has become the predominate source rather than articles leading to the publication.
While peer-reviewed journals remain the predominate source for scholarly writing, we cannot overlook the value of the book and we must accept the book does play a role in providing relevant information on the field.
References
Lang, T., Hall, D., & Landrum, W. H. (2010).
Citation analysis and trends in knowledge management. Paper presented at the Americas Conference on Information Systems, Lima, Peru.
Yin, R.K. (2009).
Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
